Chemical Engineering

Individual steps of a heterogeneously catalyzed gas-phase reaction on a porous catalyst.

1) Diffusion of the starting materials through the boundary layer to the catalyst surface.
2) Diffusion of the starting materials into the pores (pore diffusion).
3) Adsorption of the reactants on the inner surface of the pores.
4) Chemical reaction on the catalyst surface.
5) Desorption of the products from the catalyst surface.
6) Diffusion of the products out of the pores.
7) Diffusion of the products away from the catalyst through the boundary layer and into the gas phase.

Reaction section of FCC unit

Views of representative crossflow tray-type devices.

a) Sieve Tray
b) Bubble-cap Tray
c) Valve Tray

(J. R. Fair, 1984. AIChE Symp. Ser. No. 235, 79: 1)

Contacting patterns for various combinations of high and low concentration of reactants in continuous flow operations (Levenspiel, 1972).

REACTIVE DISTILLATION: AMMONIA RECOVERY IN SOLVAY PROCESS

The recovery of ammonia in the classic Solvay process for soda as of the 1860s may be cited as probably the first commercial application of reactive distillation.

Today, every hidden corner of a cell can be explored.

Jacques Dubochet, Joachim Frank and Richard Henderson were awarded the 2017 in Chemistry for their development of an effective method for generating three-dimensional images of the molecules of life. Using cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM), researchers can now freeze biomolecules mid-movement and portray them at atomic resolution.

There are a number of benefits that make cryo-EM so revolutionary: Dubochet’s vitrification method is relatively easy to use and requires a minimal sample size. Due to the rapid cooling process, biomolecules can be frozen mid-action and researchers can take a series of images that capture different parts of a process. Using cryo-EM, it is also easier than ever before to depict membrane proteins, which often function as targets for pharmaceuticals, and large molecular complexes.

Each corner of the cell can now be captured in atomic detail and biochemistry has an exciting future ahead.

Image: The electron microscope’s resolution has radically improved, from mostly showing shapeless blobs to now being able to visualise proteins at atomic resolution. Credit: Martin Högbom.

An exotic substance thought to exist within a type of collapsed star called a neutron star (illustrated) may be stronger than any other known material. It is about 10 billion times as strong as steel...!!!

Carbohydrate Formation in the Absence of Biosynthesis under Interstellar Conditions:

Demonstrated here is the selective formation of simple aldoses under interstellar conditions using hydroxymethylene (H–C̈–OH) as the reactive formaldehyde (H2C=O) isomer. Such reactions occur highly efficiently in the gas phase, even at the very cold conditions akin to interstellar space.

Formation of simple sugars from the reactions of formaldehyde with its tautomer hydroxycarbene (top left). Front: Glyceraldehyde; top right: glycolaldehyde

Cryogenic electron microscopy (cryo-EM) is a revolutionary technology for making 3D images of the inner workings of cells in much higher resolution than ever possible before. Under development for four decades, it’s seen such rapid progress over the past few years that three of its developers were awarded a Nobel prize in 2017. “Cryo” refers to the fact that samples are flash-frozen before being “photographed” from multiple angles with focused electron beams. The reconstructed images show how atoms are arranged within molecular machines inside our cells – from the proton channels that help keep cells healthy by controlling their acidity to the molecular gadgets viruses use to maintain their ability to infect.

Advanced biomaterials with silk fibroin-bioactive glass to engineer patient-specific 3-D bone grafts:

The complex architecture of bone is challenging to recreate in the lab. Therefore, advances in bone tissue engineering (BTE) aim to build patient-specific grafts that assist bone repair and trigger specific cell-signaling pathways. Materials scientists in regenerative medicine and BTE progressively develop new materials for active biological repair at a site of defect post-implantation to accelerate healing through bone biomimicry.

Using scanning tunneling microscopy, the team confirmed that the conductance of these molecular wires was equal to or higher than those of previously reported organic molecular wires, including similar wires "doped" with iron units.

A composite of about 300 stop-action X-ray diffraction images shows the martensitic transformation of cadmium sulfide nanocrystals. Looking from left to right, the light blue line at the top comes from the hexagonal atomic arrangement. It disappears about 250 picoseconds (trillionths of a second) after the beginning of the experiment and is replaced about 50 picoseconds later (to the right) by the signature of the cubic form: a bright blue line above the dark red line on the right side of the image. (Joshua Wittenberg/SLAC and Stanford)

CIMON: nuovo assistente virtuale sull’ISS

SpaceX ha lanciato una nuova missione di rifornimento verso la Stazione Spaziale Internazionale. La navicella Dragon, già utilizzata in passato, tra vari rifornimenti ed esperimenti, ha portato con sé un ospite davvero speciale: un robot volante e parlante per tenere compagnia agli astronauti!

Il robot, chiamato Crew Interactive Mobile Companion o CIMON (da pronunciare come Simon), userà vari microfoni e camere per comunicare con gli astronauti e un piccolo schermo digitale a raffigurare delle espressioni facciali.
CIMON è stato sviluppato principalmente dal Centro Aerospaziale Tedesco in collaborazione con ESA, Airbus e IBM. È proprio su un’intelligenza artificiale sviluppata da IBM, chiamata Watson, che si basa il “cervello” del robot.

Al momento è addestrato per comunicare con l’astronauta tedesco Alexander Gerst, che è sulla Stazione Spaziale dal 6 giugno. In orbita riconoscerà la faccia e la voce dell’astronauta, e lo seguirà in giro per la stazione utilizzando un sistema di propulsione ad aria.
Obiettivi attuali e futuri di CIMON

Le missioni in programma al momento, prevedono un utilizzo fino ad ottobre, aiutando Gerst a risolvere semplici problemi, come farebbe un comune assistente digitale.

Tre sono le missioni principali per CIMON: aiuterà Gerst a risolvere un cubo di Rubik guidandolo nei vari passaggi, registrerà e aiuterà l’astronauta mentre eseguirà un esperimento medico utilizzando la camera in modo “intelligente”, e infine, lo guiderà durante un esperimento di crescita dei cristalli.
Portato sulla Stazione Spaziale Internazionale su un vettore SpaceX, CIMON ha l'obiettivo di aiutare gli astronauti a svolgere degli esperimenti, e costituisce un primo passo verso un assistente virtuale per i viaggi con equipaggio nello spazio profondo.
CIMON aiuterà Gerst a risolvere un cubo di Rubik.

Il robot utilizzerà delle reti neurali per imparare e interagire con l’esterno, e i dati raccolti potrebbero essere utilizzati per sviluppare futuri assistenti virtuali come questo.

L’importanza di questa missione risiede nel fatto che l’interazione sociale tra persone e macchine equipaggiate con un’intelligenza emotiva, potrebbe essere di grande aiuto nelle future missioni a lungo termine vero la Luna o Marte, sia per quando riguarda la soluzione di problemi pratici, sia per affievolire la solitudine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdQ1892wnl4

Project CIMON - AI assistant for astronauts CIMON (Crew Interactive Mobile CompanioN) is a project of the DLR Space Administration/European Space Agency (ESA) to explores the use of AI as a way to miti...

Il tuo tratto GI ha un po 'di nervosismo

Il nervo vago scorre tra il tratto gastrointestinale e il cervello, in particolare l'ippocampo, una regione tipicamente associata alla memoria. Gli scienziati della University of Southern California affermano che ai tempi della caccia nomade, questo "asse del cervello" funzionava come una sorta di GPS interno, aiutando i primi umani a ricordare dove avevano il loro ultimo pasto - e, di conseguenza, dove potevano prendi il prossimo.

La complessa relazione tra l'intestino e il cervello è mediata dal vago, il nervo più lungo del corpo. Comprendendo un po 'meglio il rapporto tra cibo, spazio e memoria, questa ricerca - pubblicata sulla rivista Nature Communications - apre le porte a importanti questioni mediche.

Il team USC ha scoperto il funzionamento del vago attraverso esperimenti sui ratti: hanno scoperto che gli animali i cui nervi del vago erano stati recisi avevano difficoltà a ricordare le informazioni sul loro ambiente.

Your GI Tract’s Got Some Nerve

The vagus nerve runs between the gastrointestinal tract and the brain — specifically the hippocampus, a region typically associated with memory. Scientists at the University of Southern California are positing that in the days of nomadic hunting, this “gut-brain axis” functioned as a kind of internal GPS, helping early humans remember where they had their last meal — and, accordingly, where they could get their next one.

The complex relationship between the gut and brain is mediated by the vagus, the longest nerve in the body. By understanding a little better the relationship between food, space and memory, this research — published in the journal Nature Communications — opens the door to important medical questions, according to USC: “Could bariatric surgeries or other therapies that block gut-to-brain signaling affect memory?” Moreover, the team wrote, understanding gut-to-brain communication might help us get a better handle on degenerative conditions like Alzheimer’s disease.

The USC team sussed out the functioning of the vagus through experiments on rats: They found that animals whose vagus nerves had been severed had trouble remembering information about their environment. Lead author Andrea Suarez, a PhD candidate in biological sciences, said, “We saw impairments in hippocampal-dependent memory when we cut off the communication between the gut and the brain. These memory deficits were coupled with harmful neurobiological outcomes in the hippocampus.” Anxiety and weight levels were unaffected, though.

A Magnetic Attraction To Medical Progress

Al MIT, gli scienziati hanno creato forme morbide stampate in 3D i cui movimenti possono essere controllati dall'onda di un magnete - "come marionette senza archi", secondo l'università.
La tecnologia aumenta la possibilità di dispositivi biomedici che possono essere personalizzati per adattarsi alle esigenze del corpo di un paziente e controllati magneticamente.

Le forme mobili si basano sulla premessa di "dispositivi azionati morbidamente" - "materiali soffici e modellabili", secondo il MIT, i cui movimenti possono essere manipolati da stimoli esterni come la variazione di temperatura o la tensione elettrica. Ma tali dispositivi spesso rispondono lentamente, e qualcosa come una carica elettrica è una proposta difficile quando il materiale è alloggiato nel corpo. Il team ha risolto il problema stampando forme che contenevano "domini" magnetici, o "sezioni individuali di una struttura, ciascuna con un orientamento distinto di particelle magnetiche", che possono muoversi in modi distinti in base al campo magnetico esterno. Jerry Qi, un professore di Georgia Tech non coinvolto nello studio, ha commentato: "Con questa tecnologia ... si può applicare un campo magnetico fuori dal corpo umano, senza utilizzare alcun cablaggio. Grazie alla sua rapida velocità di risposta, il robot morbido può compiere molte azioni in breve tempo. "

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUt1YKtn6kM

Magnetic shape-shifters MIT engineers have created soft, magnetic 3-D-printed structures that can transform their shape almost instantaneously by the wave of a magnet. The structure...

A Magnetic Attraction To Medical Progress

Also at MIT, scientists created soft 3D-printed shapes whose movements can be controlled by the wave of a magnet — “like marionettes without the strings,” according to the university.

The technology raises the possibility of biomedical devices that could be customized to fit the demands of a patient’s body and controlled magnetically. MIT professor Xuanhe Zhao, co-author of a study just out in Nature, said, “We could put a structure around a blood vessel to control the pumping of blood, or use a magnet to guide a device through the GI tract to take images, extract tissue samples, clear a blockage or deliver certain drugs to a specific location.”

The movable shapes are based on the premise of “soft actuated devices” — “squishy, moldable materials,” per MIT, whose movements can be manipulated by external stimuli like temperature change or electrical voltage. But such devices often respond slowly, and something like an electrical charge is a tricky proposition when the material is lodged in the body. The team got around the problem by printing shapes that contained magnetic “domains,” or “individual sections of a structure, each with a distinct orientation of magnetic particles,” that can move in distinct ways according to the external magnetic field. Jerry Qi, a Georgia Tech professor not involved in the study, commented, “With this technology … one can apply a magnetic field outside the human body, without using any wiring. Because of its fast responsive speed, the soft robot can fulfill many actions in a short time.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUt1YKtn6kM

Magnetic shape-shifters MIT engineers have created soft, magnetic 3-D-printed structures that can transform their shape almost instantaneously by the wave of a magnet. The structure...

Warm Comfort For Cold Divers

Prendendo ispirazione dal mondo animale, gli ingegneri del MIT e della George Mason University hanno escogitato un modo per realizzare mute umide che triplicano il tempo di sopravvivenza per nuotatori e subacquei in acqua ghiacciata.

Guidati da una coppia di professori di ingegneria del MIT, il progetto di costruire una muta umida ha risposto a un'esigenza tra i Navy SEALs, ad esempio, quando il lavoro richiede loro di saltare nei laghi ghiacciati e nei fiumi. Tempi di sopravvivenza più lunghi in acqua fredda saranno un vantaggio per squadre come i SEAL, con i quali gli ingegneri hanno collaborato al nuovo design.

Come dice il MIT, il nuovo processo del team produce "un materiale isolante simile a un grasso che fa anche uso di sacche di gas intrappolate", vale a dire xeno o kripton. Il gas è la chiave: aumenta notevolmente la capacità isolante rispetto alla semplice aria intrappolata. Fondamentalmente, la tecnologia funziona anche con mute umide standard in neoprene. Il team ha scoperto che le tute potevano semplicemente essere collocate in un'autoclave riempita con un gas inerte pesante, portando a un migliore isolamento per un massimo di 20 ore. Il team ha riportato i suoi risultati sulla rivista RSC Advances.

Warm Comfort For Cold Divers

Taking inspiration from the animal world, engineers at MIT and George Mason University have figured out a way to make wet suits that triple the survival time for swimmers and divers in icy water.

Led by a pair of MIT engineering professors, the project to build a better wet suit responded to a need among Navy SEALs, for instance, or rescuers whose job requires them to jump into frozen lakes and rivers. Even the best wetsuits, typically made of neoprene, keep a body warm for only so long — “as little as tens of minutes,” according to an MIT release, depending on the temperature of the water. Longer survival times in cold water will be a boon to teams like the SEALs, with whom the engineers collaborated on the new design.

By mimicking qualities of otters and penguins, who are kept warm by air pockets in their fur or feathers, and mammals like whales, who rely on blubber. As MIT put it, the team’s new process yields “a blubber-like insulating material that also makes use of trapped pockets of gas,” namely xenon or krypton. The gas is key: It dramatically boosts the insulating ability compared with simple trapped air. Crucially, too, the technology works with standard neoprene wet suits. The team found that the suits could simply be placed in an autoclave filled with a heavy inert gas, leading to better insulation for up to 20 hours. The team reported its findings in the journal RSC Advances.

Eye, Robot

All'ospedale John Radcliffe di Oxford, i chirurghi hanno aiutato a eseguire operazioni delicate sugli occhi da assistenti sorprendenti: i robot. In una sperimentazione supportata dal Centro di ricerca biomedica Oxford del National Institute for Health Research, una dozzina di pazienti che richiedevano un intervento chirurgico estremamente delicato per rimuovere una membrana da dietro le retine sono stati assegnati in modo casuale a gruppi: metà ha subito un'operazione standard, mentre i chirurghi operano dall'altro metà aveva assistenza robotica. Il team ha studiato "microtrauma retinico" come proxy per giudicare la sicurezza di affidarsi ai robot, non trovando differenze significative nei risultati tra i due gruppi. Nel frattempo, le operazioni in cui il chirurgo e il robot hanno collaborato hanno mostrato segni di "uguale o migliore efficacia", secondo Oxford. Il passo successivo, ha detto MacLaren, "sarà quello di utilizzare il dispositivo di chirurgia robotica per l'erogazione precisa e minimamente traumatica di una terapia genica alla retina, che sarà un altro successo nel primo uomo e dovrebbe iniziare all'inizio del 2019".

Eye, Robot

At Oxford’s John Radcliffe Hospital, surgeons got help performing delicate eye operations from surprising assistants: robots.
In a trial backed by the National Institute for Health Research’s Oxford Biomedical Research Centre, a dozen patients requiring a highly delicate surgery to remove a membrane from behind their retinas were randomly assigned to groups: Half underwent a standard operation, while surgeons operating on the other half had robotic assistance.
The team studied “retinal microtrauma” as a proxy to judge the safety of relying on robots, finding no significant difference in outcomes between the two groups. Meanwhile, the operations where surgeon and robot collaborated showed signs of “equal or better efficacy,” according to Oxford. The next step, MacLaren said, “will be to use the robotic surgical device for precise and minimally traumatic delivery of a gene therapy to the retina, which will be another first-in-man achievement and is set to commence in early 2019.”

Artificial photosynthesis offers clean source of hydrogen.

Devices made using conventional semiconductor technologies could make hydrogen using just fresh or saltwater and sunlight.

The idea of a hydrogen economy is delayed, however, by two factors: the lack of a distribution structure for hydrogen and the difficulty in making the gas.

there are two way to product hydrogenç decompose the water into hydrogen and oxygen or separete from natural gas.
Researchers have been tryingmimicking the natural process of photosynthesis. The device is made from silicon and gallium nitrideWhen light strikes the towers, the photons knock electrons out of the crystal structure, which then become mobile, as do the positively charged holes they leave behind. It is these mobile charge carriers that split hydrogen away from water molecules.

Magnetic lattice material promises dramatic increase in electronic device battery life

A new magnetic lattice material developed by researchers at the University of Missouri could be used to increase the battery life of electronic devices by more than a hundred times, it is claimed.

The University of Missouri developed a two-dimensional, nanostructured material created by depositing a magnetic alloy, or permalloy, on the honeycomb structured template of a silicon surface. The new material conducts unidirectional current, or currents that only flow one way. The material also has significantly less dissipative power compared to a semiconducting diode, which is normally included in electronic devices.

Swiss team carves miniscule watch component from synthetic diamond

Diamond has a number of favourable properties but cutting it into complex shapes with micrometre precision remains very challenging.
Swiss National Science Foundation Professor at EPFL in Lausanne build up a new process that makes it possible to carve a micromechanical watch system.-
the technic consist in a reactive ion etching, a technique widely used in the computer chip industry, to carve synthetic diamond into three-dimensional shapes 0.15mm thick.
In a second project, the researchers are working to develop optical components from ultrapure diamond, such as lenses used in thermal imaging, which operate within the infrared spectrum, as well as laser components for industrial cutting.

Under pressure : Engineers at MIT have designed a compression bandage with photonic fibers that change color as the bandage pressure changes. The team created the fabric by layering widely available transparent rubber material, only a few hundred nanometers thick, and wrapping it around flexible black rubber centers. The transparent material reflects different colors, depending on how tightly the fibers are stretched. Red means that the fibers are stretched too tightly, and green means that the fibers are stretched correctly and at a good pressure for treating injury.

A team of doctors and researchers at the University of California at San Francisco transplanted a pregnant woman’s stem cells into her unborn child, who was suffering from a normally fatal fetal condition. The baby, Elianna Obar, was born in February. The university reported that Elianna was “the first fetus enrolled in the world’s first clinical trial using blood stem cells transplanted prior to birth.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZmPDEChlF0

First Clinical Trial of In Utero Stem Cell Transplant for Alpha Thalassemia UC San Francisco’s Tippi MacKenzie, MD, is running the world’s first clinical trial using stem cells transplanted prior to birth. The trial is looking to tre...

Laser eyes : Scientists at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland have developed a “soft” laser system that fits onto a membrane and can be attached to a contact lens. The team was able to “demonstrate ocular lasing using the cow eye as a model system,” according to the university.

Software prediction : Researchers at the University of Bonn in Germany have developed self-learning software that can “look a few minutes into the future.” The computer program used machine vision and pattern recognition to observe people preparing salad.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMNYRcVH_oI

When will you do what? - Anticipating Temporal Occurrences of Activities (CVPR 2018) Qualitative results for the paper : When will you do what? - Anticipating Temporal Occurrences of Activities Yazan Abu Farha, Alexander Richard, Juergen Gall...

👨‍🏫Special monday issue: Environment🌤️

---NH3-SCR: Selective Catalytic Reduction with ammonia--

Is an important plant used for the removal of pollutants from flue gases such as NOx and metals in automotive and power plants.

Any guesses on this technology?

Smart blood : Researchers working at the Stanford University School of Medicine transformed human immune cells harvested from blood into functional neurons, the building blocks of the central nervous system as well as the brain. They were able to do it without inducing the cells into pluripotent stem cells (iPS) first, but they are far to complete it utilized as cure.